"Humble" Almahdi - A likable Padashani beggar with quick wit. Talkative. Funny. Fluent in several languages. Street smart, but somewhat cowardly.Grim Rigor- A huge ogre warrior. A former slave and gladiator. Extremely tough. Good in a fight. Cured of a zombie infection by Belkor.

Session 25 left off exactly where the last one ended. The party had just finished a big fight on the ground floor of Fort Jegorim. A dozen or so saurians lay dead, including a big hurkyte. From the hurkyte, Belkor claimed the sword named “Fate Breaker”. He decided to wield it and the flaming dagger from that point on.

The party checked the main doors. They were barred now. Peering out through the arrow slits of the guard room, the party could see other saurians out in the courtyard, but they were not roused and no alarm had been sounded.

The party decided to quickly check the rest of the floor. The sound of snoring led them to a metal workshop and forge in the back corner where they found a fat dwarf asleep next to a few empty bottles. He was clearly drunk and sleeping it off. The party assumed he must be a slave of the saurians. They roused him and talked to him. They were right. His name was Mallix. He told them that years ago he had been the blacksmith at the fort. He had fled with the others when the dragon came. A year ago, he and two dozen others had come back in hopes of somehow reclaiming the fort. They did not, however, know about the saurians and were caught off guard. Some died, but many were captured. One by one the saurians sacrificed them to the dragon. Mallix was the last, kept alive because he had useful skills. The saurians forced him to fix things around the fort for them, mostly stone and metal work, at which they had no skill.

Mallix explained that the saurians were a very primitive bunch and they worshiped the dragon as some kind of god. They considered the whole fortress holy ground. There were more than fifty saurians, all led by a powerful saurian shaman. More than half of them were away from the fort, out hunting.

The party asked about the fort and the denizens above. Mallix confirmed and elaborated on what the party had already learned. Undead prowled on the second and third floors. The saurian shaman who ruled the others was good at raising the dead as undead monstrosities. He had successfully created several skeletons. However, some time ago, when he tried to raise the former cleric of this fort, he lost control of the creature and, shortly afterwards, all the undead. Mallix said that he had overheard the saurians talking… that there was some “dark power” on the third floor which is what had allowed these undead creatures to throw of the shaman’s control.

The party asked about the dragon. Mallix confirmed that it had left earlier (the party had seen the dragon fly overhead when they approached the fort earlier that day). He told them the dragon was usually gone for a few hours. He explained that the fourth floor was where the dragon laired and that the fifth floor was essentially gone, having collapsed.

The party informed Mallix that they had just slain all of the saurians on the first floor and the skrell below. They told him that they would arm him and, if he fought beside them, they would make sure he was freed. Mallix agreed and armed himself with armor and weapons from one of the armories.

Seeing nothing else of interest on this floor, the party took the stairs up. At the top of the stairs was a short passageway which connected to a large central hall. Just before it opened up into the hall, there was a doorway to the side. Winlock kicked open the door and inside where two undead skeletons, armed and armored. They turned in unison and attacked. The battle was brief. Winlock’s hammer proved very effective against the brittle bone of the skeletons while Listig and Halimir fired arrows over Winlock’s head.

The two skeletons were defeated quickly. The room they were in was just another guard chamber. That was when the group noticed that the two skeletons they had just destroyed were begin to stir… bones knitting back together, cracks in skulls sealing and so forth. These things were reforming… healing. Winlock took his hammer and reduced them to powder.

The sounds of the battle must have roused the other undead. The party could hear the sound of booted feet ringing against stone and movement nearby. The party rushed into the main central corridor. It had double doors at each end. From the nearer set of double doors, a half dozen skeletal warriors emerged, heavily armed and armored. Beyond them came a skeletal knight in full plate armor and brandishing an enormous sword and tower shield.

At the far end appeared a skeletal figure in heavy blood red robes and another skeletal warrior. Winlock strode forward swing his hammer and was quickly surrounded by the enemy. The priest at the far end began to cast a spell, but William managed to use a counterspell to counter it. Halimir and Listig began firing arrows into multiple targets.

Belkor used his magic boots to race down the hall and confront the skeletal priest. His twin blades flashed out and spun in a dizzying blur. As the group battled the horrific skeletal things, it quickly became apparent to them that these undead were healing continually. And Belkor soon discovered that the priest was healing much faster than all the others. The fact that cutting blades were not very effective against bone combined with the skeleton’s healing made this a particularly difficult fight.

William countered another spell from the priest while the rest continued beating on the skeletons with sword, hammer and arrow.

Two new skeletons appeared, coming down a set of stairs from the third floor. One of them was dressed in black robes adorned with arcane glyphs. The robed one tried to cast another spell, but William managed to counter a third time.

At this point, William was able to sense something. His ring gives him the ability to sense the field of magic around him. Through the power of the ring, he was able to sense that all of these skeletons were connected to a powerful magic source above them. Something up on the third floor was lending them power and, no doubt, responsible for their healing. William called out to the group that they needed to get to the third floor.

The battle raged on. Belkor spun and slashed, over and over, beating on the priest. Winlock smashed his hammer into the chest of a skeleton, shattering it into pieces. Everyone was bleeding from various wounds. Mallix was stabbed in the chest by the big skeletal knight and fell to the floor. It was one of the toughest battles the group had faced so far.

The battle moved out into the center of the hall with opponents moving all over. Eventually, Winlock brought down the last of the common skeletons and Belkor managed to bring the priest down. The only two left standing were the skeletal wizard and knight.

The wizard cast a wall of fire, engulfing Belkor, William and Winlock in flames. Singed and smoking, the three staggered out of the inferno. However, a well-placed sword stroke brought the wizard down. The knight was the only one left. This last remaining skeletal thing and Winlock began trading blows back and forth.

William cast invisibility on Listig and urged him to run up the stairs and find the source of power on the third floor. The knight turned and chased after Listig with William coming up after him.

Listig found a power of double doors at the center of a short hallway on the third floor. He threw open the doors and revolted in horror. In a small room was some kind of dark shrine. It was composed of hundreds of bones and rotting flesh. The entire thing seemed to be bleeding. Dozens of skulls adorned the thing. Many had bits of flesh still attached and some had eyes starring out. The eyes in the skulls were moving and the jaws gaped open in silent screams.

The skeletal knight came bounding up the stairs, ran past the invisible Listig, and positioned himself in front of the shrine, facing outward, as if to protect it from the enemy. William came running up a moment later.

Down on the second floor, pieces of skeletons began to crawl toward each other, slowly reconnecting joints and reforming. Belkor, Halimir and Winlock continued hacking at the skeleton corpses in an attempt to prevent them from reforming whole.

Up on the third floor, Listig drew an arcane disruptor arrow and fired it over the head of the knight and directly into the shrine. Instantly, the blood stopped flowing, the eyes rolled back into the skulls and the shrine stopped convulsing.

Down on the second floor, half formed skeletons collapsed back into bones. Halimir, Belkor and Winlock raced up the stairs. The party, now united against the skeletal knight, fought him as a team. Without the power of the shrine, the skeletal knight was weaker and no longer regenerating. The party managed to bring him down.

Listig and William weren’t sure how long the arcane disruptor arrow would keep the shrine nullified. Wasting no time, Winlock strode into the shrine and began smashing the bone shrine to pieces. In no time, he was knee deep in a bloody bone shards.

Battle was done, but the party was exhausted. Everyone had been wounded and they had expanded a great deal of their magic. The party discussed whether it might be wise to retreat out of the fort and rest for a day. After some talking, they decided against it. Who knew when the dragon would return? Who knew if the bone shrine might somehow regenerate itself overnight? They decided it was better to loot the dragon lair now, while they knew it was miles away.

Before venturing up to the fourth floor and the dragon’s lair, they did a quick scan for magic and discovered that several of the skeletal undead had been carrying or using magic weapons. The full suit of armor, shield and sword used by the knight were all magical.

The party did a quick search of the second and third floors. On the second floor, they found a kitchen, pantry, library, conference room, throne room, a few bed chambers and a feasting hall. The third floor was smaller and held only the shrine and three opulent, but moldy, bed chambers. Scanning for magic throughout, they picked up a few enchanted objects and bits of treasure here and there on both floors.

Finally, it was time to venture up and into the lair of the dragon. The party went up the stairs to the fourth floor. The stairs opened up into a single huge chamber which was as large as the entire third floor.

Shattered walls, pieces of ceiling, broken masonry, toppled statues and bricks littered the entire floor. It looked as if all of the inner walls had been reduced to rubble. Only the outer walls still stood. One of the outer walls was completely gone and the party could see the tops of trees beyond.

The air was thick and heavy with the smell of ash and sulfur. There were scorch marks on the walls. Looking up, the party could see about half of the ceiling was gone and open to sky. The jagged edge of the ceiling was a tangle of broken wooden beams and crumbling stone overhead.

Scattered across the floor, intermixed with the rubble and wreckage, were a number of corpses. They looked old… nothing more than skeletons. Many of them were still in armor. Several of them were scorched black. Here and there were skulls, broken blades, bones, bits of armor, a stray boot, and so forth. It was clear that, when the dragon first came, it had been one hell of a battle.

In the center of this vast chamber was something that looked like a bird’s nest, but almost twenty feet across. It was made from rubble, broken timber, shredded tapestries and so forth.

In front of the nest was a huge pile of glittering treasure. Tens of thousands of coins were piled up into a neatly shaped mound. Gems, jewelry, silver goblets and other shiny pieces poked out from the pile here and there. The mound of treasure looked too neat and perfect for a creature as large as a dragon to have formed it. The party guessed it must have been the saurians that so neatly piled up the dragon’s treasure.

Ignoring the obvious treasure for the moment, the party began a slow search of the room. William concentrated and began scanning the whole room for magic. Belkor, Listig and Winlock began searching through the rubble and debris, starting at the edges of the room.

Halimir walked over to the nest to investigate it. As soon as he was close to it, a pair of creatures leapt out and knocked him to the ground. They were winged reptiles, about the size of large dogs. They growled and snapped at him, clawing at his face and arms, their stubby wings flapping aimlessly.

The rest of the party rushed over to the nest to help him. Baby dragons! Quite possibly only a few days old. The party immediately realized that they couldn’t kill these hatchlings. They couldn’t even wound them. To harm them in any way could bring down the wrath of a full grown dragon on them.

William pulled out the Talisman of Dreams and used it to charm the hatchlings. Very soon, they were licking the adventurers and hopping about like playful puppies. With a little coaxing, William got them back into the nest and got them settled down. That was when they saw the huge egg in the nest. Greed wrestled with common sense as they discussed what a viable dragon egg would fetch on the open market. But common sense eventually won out and they decided to leave it be.

Having dealt with the hatchling dragons, the party returned to their searching. While the others searched, Listig came upon the body of an archer near the far wall. Judging by the breastplate, hair and bone structure, it had been a woman, possibly elven. Her leg had been crushed and her armor was burned.

On her back was a quiver of arrows and a beautiful bow. It was a composite longbow fashioned from ironwood and wind dancer wood. It was decorated in silver and ivory and carved with a forest scene depicting elves dancing about a great oak.

It looked like she had dragged herself across the floor in the midst of the battle. Her hand was reached out as if grasping toward something, but she had died before she reached her goal. In front of her was a pile of rubble where a section of wall had collapsed.

Listig and Halimir began digging out the pile of rubble. They uncovered an iron cabinet, rusted and badly dented. Inside were a variety of bows, arrows and a long slender black box. William scanned the whole area. The bow on her back and several of the arrows were magical. They opened up the black box and inside was a single black arrow. William could feel immense magical energy radiating from the black arrow. The two archers began discussing how they should divide up the bow and arrows between the two of them.

Meanwhile, William used the Talisman to help locate the Star Sceptre of Rashi. It was actually above them, in a smashed wooden and metal cabinet, on the floor above, at the very edge of the damaged ceiling. They looked up and could just see a faint blue glow from within the cabinet. (Humble Almahdi had described the scepter and told them the main gemstone always glowed blue). Belkor used his magic boots to jump up to the ceiling, grab a hold of a broken wooden beam, reach in and grab the scepter. This scepter was their main reason for coming to the keep. With it secure, their reason for being here was done.

Having searched the room, sorted through the rubble and plucked out various interesting trinkets, the party began filling their looting sacks with treasure. Gold coins, silver chalices, strings of pearls, sparkling gems and magnificent pieces of jewelry all went in. Combined with the magical armor and weapons that they had taken from the skeletons and their normal adventuring equipment, the party was struggling under the weight of it all.

They decided to leave most of the coins behind. There were tens of thousands of coins and they couldn’t possible take them all. Far too much weight. They were careful to pile the remaining treasure back up into a mound as it had been.

Carrying this much, it would be difficult to get back down four floors, go through the river cave and swing across the waterfall. They decided it would be better to use a fly spell to fly themselves.

William cast fly on Winlock (who was the strongest) and they began shuttling themselves and the treasure out. They were careful to avoid flying over the courtyard so the saurians below would not see them.

It would take several trips. Each trip, Winlock carried one person and a sack of treasure and gear, dropping the person and cargo on the far cliff, opposite the waterfall. That left them at the top of the trail, but they couldn’t manage further because the fly spell would only last a few minutes.

As Winlock was flying back, they all heard a roar in the distance. Several of them could see a dark winged shape against the sky, small with distance, but growing in size. Winlock landed back in the rubble strewn lair. Belkor and Halimir were the last to go and there wasn’t time to take them one a time. They both piled onto Winlock and they took off and (very shakily) flew over the wall.

They managed to get to the cover of the trees just as a tremendous shadow swept over them and the dragon flew past and into the fortress. With the beating of powerful wings, it landed in the now empty lair and roared.

Wasting no time, the party grabbed their loot and made their way down the winding steep trail. They hastened as quickly as they could and did not slow their pace. They kept to deep ravines and forested paths as much as they could, avoiding the open grassy areas, always fearing they would hear the roar of the dragon above them. Luckily, the dragon did not pursue.

The party made their way back to the wagon and regrouped with Almahdi and Grim. They loaded the treasure and gear into the wagon and left as fast as they could. They decided to avoid the abandoned village of Redfield and went around it. They had no desire to deal with the crazy hermit. They travelled until the sun started to set. They could have stayed at the village of Seven Stone which they had passed through the other day, but decided they did not want to interact with any villagers. They made camp in the forest several miles from the village and took turns standing guard throughout the night.

The next morning, they continued their journey, avoiding farms and villages as much as possible. They made their way southwest toward the town of Herota and again made camp in the forest again.

The party was heading to Herota to return the star scepter and (hopefully) remove the price on Almahdi’s head and free him from the life of a fugitive.

On the morning of the third day, as they were nearing Herota, they came upon a man leading a donkey and cart heading in the same direction. He was a farmer brings his goods to Herota for market day. They talked to him and asked him about news from Herota. It had been several weeks since they had left Herota, when they had fled the city by stealing a ship out of the harbor. The party was curious what had happened since then.

The farmer was a wealth of information. He told them that someone had stolen a magrakian cargo ship while the captain had been in jail. The captain was released from jail a few days later only to find that his ship and entire crew were gone with no explanation.

In truth, the party had failed to charm two of the crew members. They had left a bag of gems with those two for their captain and told them that they would bring the ship back with more payment. Since the farmer did not mention those two, it became clear to the party that those two crew members had taken the gems and fled, leaving their captain to his fate.

The farmer continued… the captain of the stolen ship owed a lot of money to the shipping guild because a good portion of the cargo had still been on the ship and not offloaded yet. The shipping guild was a powerful force in the city and not to be trifle with. The captain was financially responsible for the missing cargo and ended up heavily in debt to the guild. The guild had forced the captain into indentured servitude to pay off his debt… with an estimated six years of service.

The party, feeling appropriately guilty about the captain’s plight, decided to do something about that. The party went to the king first. With Almahdi (a wanted criminal) and the Star Sceptre in hand, they had no problem getting an immediate audience with the king and his advisors.

The King was astounded at the return of the scepter and showered the party with praise and gratitude. The party spoke on behalf of Almahdi and the king gladly recalled the bounty on Almahdi. The king had promised the hand of his daughter, Princess Kamala, to the man who returned the scepter. The party gave credit for retrieving the scepter to Almahdi. However, Princess Kamala wanted nothing to do with Almahdi (if you remember, he had promised to steal the scepter and jewels for her, but then had fled with both, leaving her with nothing). The headstrong princess was still furious about Almahdi’s betrayal and refused to marry him. The king sided with his daughter and so that matter of marriage was dropped.

The king thanked the party profusely and they asked the king’s aid to help free the magrakian captain from his servitude. The king’s advisors argued that the shipping guild was too powerful and would fight the crown on such an order. In the end, it was agreed that the king’s court would pay half of the captain’s debt and the party would pay the other half.

The payment was made to the guild and the captain was released. Although angry at the loss of his ship, the party was far too powerful to fight and the captain accepted his new found freedom graciously. Still feeling sorry for his plight, the party gave him weapons, armor, equipment and a sack of several hundred silver coins to help him out so that he could start over.

We ended the session here.

Next session, the party is planning on making their way back into and through the Padashan Empire. The next Talisman is located in the Border Clans region which lies between the Padashan Empire and the Kingdom of Anquar. The party will be travelling by land to get there and will be passing through a number of towns and cities that they had previously come through.

For those who are reading along on these adventures... scheduling conflicts have delayed the next game day for awhile. The next session is scheduled for March 17th and so the next session summary will be posted around March 21st or 22nd.